Medical Tourism: Indian Hospital Offers To Train Nigerian Doctors On Cancer Treatment, Establish Infrastructure In Nigeria

Medical Tourism: An Indian Hospital Offers to Train Nigerian Doctors on Cancer Treatment and Establish Infrastructure in Nigeria

Apollo Hospitals, an India Specialist Hospital, has offered to train Nigerian doctors on how to treat cancer, a life-threatening disease.

The hospital also announced its intention to establish local medical infrastructure in Nigeria and bring in cutting-edge medical equipment.

Dr. Karthik Anantharaman, Vice President-International at Apollo Hospitals, told journalists in Abuja that his hospital wants to collaborate with local hospitals in Nigeria to help the country reduce medical tourism.

India remains a major destination for Nigerians seeking medical treatment for cancer and other serious illnesses.

According to Anantharaman, Apollo Hospitals alone treats between 1000 and 2000 Nigerian patients each year.

He stated, “We want to be partners in establishing local medical infrastructure in Africa, specifically Nigeria. So Apollo Hospital is now coming to Nigeria with a more strategic goal: to train local doctors.

“Similarly, we are now going to be collaborating with many hospitals on training programmes because we truly believe that if we can train Nigerian doctors and give them the necessary skill sets to treat patients locally, a lot more patients will benefit because not everyone will have the money to travel to India or another country to receive treatment.

“So, if the local doctor has better training and skills, a lot of patients can be treated in the country.” This is our primary focus right now: skill development. Our secondary focus is to form partnerships with local hospitals.

“We want to have stronger partnerships with local hospitals so that we can actually have Apolo staff here to not only train the local doctors, but also to offer full-time medical care through partnerships and their operations and management contract.”

He also revealed the hospital’s plan to invest in oncology clinics throughout the country.

He stated: “The investments we are making are in the area of setting up nursery oncology clinics with very little investment.”

Anantharam emphasised the importance of partnering with and training local doctors, saying, “Across the group, we see at least 100-250 Nigerian patients that come to Apollo hospitals on a monthly basis, which means that in a year at Apollo Hospital, we treat at least 1000 to 2200 Nigerian patients.”

“These patients come to us for radiation treatment, oncology, surgery, and surgical procedures.

“They also come for advanced medical treatments across the group for various other treatments like kidney transplant, liver transplant, orthopaedic surgeries, knee replacement and hip replacement, and cardiac surgeries such as heart disease.”

He emphasised, “So it is our strong endeavour at Apollo Hospital that we are not only here to treat patients from Nigeria.

“We want to work together to build local medical infrastructure in Africa, particularly in Nigeria.

“So Apollo Hospital is now coming to Nigeria with a more strategic intention to train local doctors.”

He revealed that Apollo Hospital is already working with several hospitals in the country.